


Stating the Obvious

by nightwalker



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Friendship, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Season 2 spoilers, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:51:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9428222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: It occurred to Keith like a punch to the gut that they were talking about Allura now, Lance was going to try to talk about this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the end of Episode 11: Staying Alive. A conversation I really wish had happened with literally anyone (but since canon left it up to me to make it happen, it's going to be Lance).
> 
> Spoilers through Season 2 Episode 11.

Keith stepped into the elevator with a tired sigh of relief and jabbed the button for his floor a little harder than necessary. It felt kind of good so he did it again, then a third time, then caught himself before he could curl his hand into a fist and punch the panel. The way things were going for him lately he'd probably end up stranded in there. Again.

He leaned back against the side of the elevator and tried not to think about... well, anything, really. Just focused on his room and how good it would feel to get out of the armor.

The doors swished most of the way shut before someone jammed their arm through the gap. Keith jumped a little, half startled and half convinced he was about to watch one of his teammates get their arm ripped off by an alien elevator. But the doors stopped just in time and swished back open so Lance could barge in.

Keith swallowed his instinctive reaction, which was mostly disappointment. It wasn't entirely fair of him, and he just really, really didn't want to start a fight. It wasn't Lance's fault that today was one of the worst days of his life. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was just how things were now.

Lance leaned against the wall opposite Keith and crossed his arms over his chest. He'd been a little weird since he and Shiro and Pidge got back. Kind of hyper, a little over-eager. It was hard to tell with Lance sometimes, but Keith wondered if something happened out there. He was tempted to ask, but he knew better than to say anything to Lance in the mood he was in at the moment.

“So,” Lance said and Keith grit his teeth till he could nearly hear them crack. He didn't want to do this now, he didn't ever want to do this, why did they always have to _do this_ \- “Are you okay?”

“I-” Keith raised his head and stared at Lance. The other paladin was watching him but there was no smirk, no narrowed eyes. “Am I okay?”

“Yeah. Pretty much that's what I'm asking.”

“I'm fine.” Keith straightened a little, squaring his shoulders like he was bracing for a fight. He isn't sure where Lance is going with this. “We told you all in the briefing, Hunk and I didn't get hurt while we were out there.”

“Yeah, that's not what I meant.” Lance's gaze was calm, cool and knowing. Keith forgot sometimes how perceptive Lance could be, when he wasn't being so _Lance_. “What happened back there-”

It occurred to Keith like a punch to the gut that they were talking about _Allura_ now, Lance was going to try to talk about this. He didn't want to hear it, he didn't want to have to hear someone else say out loud that Allura was disgusted by him, that he'd lost his place on the team even if he was still the Red Paladin. He straightened up, could feel his shoulders squaring off into a combat stance even as something like panic bubbled and prickled under his skin. Oh god, he didn't want to hear Lance agree with her, please, he couldn't take one more today. He could survive Allura hating him but not his team, not the people who watched his back and lived inside his head. 

His head felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton, hot and heavy and his skin felt flushed. He wanted to lunge across the elevator and slap a hand over Lance's mouth to stop him, not that that would ever be enough to shut him up for good. He wanted a door to open up in the elevator floor and let him just fucking fall until none of this was happening anymore. He thought, with a blooming sense of quiet horror and tired resignation, that if Lance called him a Galra to his face he'd probably just start crying.

“-that was really unfair. I'm sorry.”

“What?” Keith heard the words though a fog, could barely understand them past the ache in his head and the heat in his chest. 

“I'm sorry. She shouldn't have done that. And Hunk shouldn't have been the only one who stood up for you. So I'm sorry. That was – really cold, man.”

Lance has that look on his face now, the one that he gets when Hunk is crying on his shoulder about missing Earth food and his sisters, the one he has when he and Pidge end up on the couch together, Pidge curled into a little ball against Lance's side because she spent too long thinking about what could be happening to her father and brother. It's the one he gets when Shiro's eyes go blank and distant out of the blue, remembering things he never should have had to live through, or when Coran accidentally mentions something from his past and his voice goes rough and aching. It had never occurred to Keith that Lance would ever have a reason to turn that look on him, and it makes his stomach ache. “It's fine.”

“If Allura had treated me like that, I'd-”

“Be sobbing under your command console and sucking your thumb,” Keith spit out, half-hoping he could piss Lance off enough to stop, half-hoping Lance doesn't take the bait. 

“I would be manly and stoic in my heartbreak,” Lance said easily. “So. Are you all right?”

It felt like someone was beating on the inside of his chest, trying to get out. “All right?” Keith realized he was panting, not sure when his breath turned harsh and ragged but now he can hear it echoing in the small space of the elevator. “Yeah. I'm great. I'm a monster and my team is scared of me, except for Allura who just hates me.” It might not just be Allura but he couldn't bring himself to push hard enough to find out. Hunk's awkwardness stung badly enough, he was afraid to look too closely and realize Pidge was afraid of him or that Shiro saw something in him of the people who'd brutalized and tortured him. 

He hadn't actually hoped that Lance would be okay with this. It would just be one more thing that festered between them, one more thing about himself Keith couldn't control that made Lance hate him.

“Literally no one is afraid of your emo ass,” Lance said. “And Allura's a good person. She'll realize she's being unfair.”

“Is she?” Keith slumped back against the wall, all the fight gone from his bones. “She has a good reason to hate me. You _all_ have a good reason to hate me.”

And that look – that look of quiet sympathy and understanding flooded through with affection and care, the look that Lance gets when his teammates need to be human for five minutes and all he wants to do is help, the look Keith never expected to ever see turned on him, not only because he never expected to need it but because he never expected Lance to care if he did, that look is still there, but it's faded, taking a second seat to a gentle smile and a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Keith, there are so many legitimate reasons to dislike you based entirely on your terrible social skills and off-putting personality. Why would anyone care about something you didn't ask for and have no control over?”

“I am a _Galra_ ,” Keith said. The first time he'd said it out loud, alone in his room, the word had caught in his throat and choked him. It still scratched on the way out.

The elevator slid to a stop on their floor, the doors swished open and Lance stepped out. He paused a moment when he realized Keith wasn't following him, then turned around and slapped his hand on the edge of the door before it could slide shut. 

“If you keep doing that it's going to get ripped off and you'll deserve it,” Keith said. 

Lance ignored him, something Lance was only good at when he wanted to be. “You were a Galra last month. We trusted you then. Nothing you found out on that whacked out base from those creepy Blade people changes the fact that you're a damned good paladin who we trust with our lives.” He paused just for a second. “I mean, you're still an asshole, but I figure that's just you.” He grinned, the same shit-eating grin he always flashed Keith when he thought he'd scored the winning point in one of their fights, but they weren't fighting and Keith didn't know what to do with that, entirely.

His mouth opened with no input from him at all, his head scrambling frantically for the right thing to say here – he knew it was something like _That means a lot to me_ or _I needed to hear that_ or even _I really, really want us to be friends but I don't know **how**_ or at least just a fucking thank you, but what came out instead was, “You're a damned good paladin, too.” He stumbled over the words for a moment, uncertainty making them come out like a question instead of an affirmation and he cringed internally, waiting for Lance to take it as an insult. This is why they couldn't be friends, because Keith couldn't even say fucking thank you without _screwing it up_.

Lance looked at him for a moment, pinned him with a narrow-eyed look before he sighed and rolled his eyes so hard Keith half-thought he'd hurt himself. “ _Duh_ , way to state the obvious, Keith.” He lifted his hand and the door slid closed again, but not before Keith heard him yell, “You're still an asshole, asshole!”

The doors closed between them and the control panel lit up, waiting for input. His hand pressed the button for the hangar without any real input from his brain but as soon as he did he knew that was exactly what he wanted. He felt raw and exposed and he couldn't handle running into someone as he walked the hall to his room – he couldn't have handled walking next to Lance after this, all those words still hanging in the air between them.

His legs were shaking as he walked across the hangar to Red's side, his breath coming in increasingly jagged gasps. There was an ache just below his sternum that made him press a hand against his chest and push down like he was trying to keep himself contained. Like he might break or explode if he didn't hold on tight enough.

His knees gave out on him and he stumbled to the ground at Red's side. He didn't know what was happening until the first sob burst out of him, ragged and sharp and hurting but sweet at the same time. It was like a pressure valve spinning open and he gulped down air even as he lost control.

Red was at the back of his mind, soft lines of fire like an Edison bulb, warm with reassurance and comfort. She dipped her head a little and nudged at him gently, tumbling him onto his ass on the floor.

He pressed his hand against her nose, the metal always warm under his palm. He didn't know how to say this out loud, couldn't make his tongue form the words for this feeling, but it didn't matter because Red could hear him anyway.

They didn't hate him. Maybe he could stop hating himself.

Red hummed in the back of his mind and Keith let her hold him up for a long time.


End file.
